Juneau’s Auke Bay Post 25 opened their 2025 Alaska Legion Baseball season over the weekend in a four-game series against visiting South Post 4 at Adair-Kennedy Memorial Park.
Only allowed to practice after the state high school championships end, the Juneau team had put in less than a week of team training, but has a roster composed of current Juneau-Douglas High School: Yadaa.at Kalé players and two returning graduates. The mix of players should be beneficial.
“I like that we have the two guys that came back and that there are a couple guys that didn’t play this year for high school, and they should have, but now want to play,” Auke Bay Post 25 head coach Joe Tompkins said. “It is going to make a difference. I think we will be doing good.”
The three-day series featured non-conference games on Friday and Sunday, and a conference doubleheader on Saturday.
In the Saturday games, Juneau went down to the wire in each, falling 3-2 in both contests.
Saturday’s first game featured strong fielding performances as Juneau faced a South roster filled with players fresh off a state tournament team that had fallen by two runs to the eventual state title winner, Sitka.
Juneau’s Auke Bay Post 25 batter Hunter Carte (4) connects on a pitch against Anchorage’s South Post 4 pitcher David Feigner (23) during Alaska American Legion baseball action Saturday at Adair-Kennedy Memorial Park. (Klas Stolpe / Juneau Empire)
Juneau trailed 3-0 heading into their final at bat and calmly closed that gap.
Kasen Ludeman, a 2024 Thunder Mountain graduate, and Hunter Carte earned one-out walks and 2025 JDHS graduate JJ McCormick doubled to score Ludeman and send Carte to third base. Micaw Nelson earned a walk to load the bases and Noah Lewis laid down a sacrifice bunt that scored Carte to trail 3-2. South ended the game with a strikeout.
“I haven’t played since last summer,” Ludeman said. He took a gap year before thinking of a college, but showed no signs of rust on the field at shortstop. “So it has been a while since I fielded a ground ball. Obviously it wasn’t the route I was going to go. Everything happened so quickly that I decided to take a gap year. I am glad to be back, especially on this turf field, playing on it for the first time. No dirt, I miss that. It makes you a better fielder but turf is always nice to play on.”
Ludeman pulled down three line drives in the game and handled three, hard-hit ground balls.
“There were definitely a few plays I think I could have had, but obviously it is the first series,” Ludeman said. “So we are going to make mistakes and we are going to learn from them. There are a lot of things I like about this team but first is the energy. On my high school team we had some ups and downs, but this team, a lot of us haven’t played together, we have come pretty far in the first few games and I think throughout the rest of the games this season I think we will be a pretty good team.”
Lamar Blatnick, a 2024 graduate, handled third base easily and Carte did the same at second base. Keaton Belcourt rounded out the infield at first base with McCormick catching pitcher Cayman Huff. The outfield featured 2025 graduate Jacob Katasse in left, Lewis in center, and Brenner Harralston and Christian Brown in right.
Juneau’s three hits in the game came from Carte, McCormick and Lewis as South featured their top ace on the mound. McCormick and Lewis had the lone RBI. Ludeman, Carte and M. Nelson earned two walks each, Belcourt had one. Juneau’s Huff threw the seven-inning game, allowed 11 hits and three runs, walked one and struck out one.
South’s David Feigner threw four innings, allowed two hits, walked one and struck out 10. Logan Gasser relieved for three innings with one hit, two runs, six walks and six strikeouts. South’s Caleb Bonin went 2-3 with one run scored, Evan Baldwin 3-4, and Jack Zuzpan, Mark Warren and Braun Precosky had one RBI each.
In Saturday’s nightcap, Juneau fell in the final South at bat on a single by Gasser scoring South’s Will Preston for the 3-2 win.
Juneau’s 2025 Auke Bay Post 25 team pose for a photo on Saturday. From left are coaches Jack Schmidt, Richie Hayes, Kai Schmidt, players Kasen Ludeman, Lamar Blatnick, Keaton Belcourt, Micah Nelson, Hunter Carte, Christian Brown, Cayman Huff, JJ McCormick, Christian Nelson, Jacob Katasse, Brenner Harralston, Nils Nelson, Noah Lewis and coaches Jake Carte, Joe Tompkins, Jeremy Ludeman and Larry Blatnick. Not pictured are players Madden Mendoza, Marcus Mendoza, Drew Cadigan-McAdoo and Aaron Lazo-Chappell (Klas Stolpe / Juneau Empire)
Juneau had scored two runs in the top of the seventh inning to tie the game at 2-2. Belcourt got the rally started with a lead-off single, Katasse sacrificed Belcourt to second base, C. Nelson singled to center field and Blatnick singled to right field, scoring Belcourt. Carte then hit a one-out sacrifice fly to center, scoring C. Nelson and tying the game. A strong fielding play at third base by South’s Zuspan ended the rally.
Blatnick and M. Nelson led Juneau with two hits apiece, while McCormick, Belcourt, Katasse and C. Nelson had one each. Blatnick and Carte had the lone RBIs, Belcourt and C. Nelson the lone runs.
Carte pitched four innings, allowed three hits and two runs, walked two and struck out two. C. Nelson went 2.1 innings with no hits allowed and one run, walked three and struck out two. Blatnick allowed one hit.
South’s Precosky went the distance, allowing eight hits, two runs, walked one and struck out five. Bonin led South bats with two RBI and Gasser with two hits.
“I am liking that our team is getting together really well,” Juneau’s Carte said. “We just have good energy at practice and stuff so far. Everyone wants to be here, everyone wants to be on the field. We have a good ball team and once we get going in the season we will be pretty solid. I am really getting used to the turf now. I love the turf. We are blessed to have this opportunity to play on this field. I mean, for so long we were playing on a dirt field with bad hops when having to charge the ball so it has been a lot of fun playing on this field.”
In Friday’s non-conference game, Juneau lost 8-3. Carte and Drew Cadigan-McAdoo had one RBI apiece; Lewis, Carte, McAdoo had one hit each, Lewis scored two runs and Harralston one. Belcourt started on the mound (2 IP, 1 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 1 SO), McAdoo relieved (2 IP, 5 H, 4 R, 4 ER, 1 BB, 1 SO), Harralston relieved (2 IP, 3 H, 3 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 1 SO) and C. Brown closed (1 IP, 1 H).
“I am actually feeling pretty good,” coach Tompkins said of the weekend. “There is a lot of good stuff from the boys. They haven’t really played together much. I mean, they were on the JV and varsity teams but they are getting it together. They all impressed me through the weekend. We only had a couple days of practice, and we’re not making excuses, but they have to learn to trust the coaches. So when they do that they’ll start putting it together…South runs a great program up there. They lost that first game at state to Sitka in a pitching duel and we faced some of their pretty good pitchers that I don’t think some of our JV guys have ever faced so they were a little bit behind. But as we practice more we will get up to that.”
Juneau earned a 7-1 win in non-conference action on Sunday. Blatnick started on the mound (4.1 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 3 BB, 4 SO), Ludeman relieved (1.2 IP, 3 BB, 2 SO) and McAdoo closed (1 IP). McCormick led with two RBI and M. Nelson one. Blatnick had two hits, while Ludeman, McCormick, M. Nelson and Katasse had one each. Blatnick and McCormick scored two runs apiece, Carte, Ludeman and Lewis one each.
“Non-conference games give us more reps and more practice,” Tomkins said. “Next weekend we are heading to a wooden bat tournament in Kenai. I think the first team we face will be a team from down south. The boys worked hard over the weekend, they kept their heads up. They’ll get it together each week as we push forward.”
• Contact Klas Stolpe at klas.stolpe@juneauempire.com.
